To pass the time she investigates the books in the library cabinet. There are dozens of literary and art journals, a shelf with a matched set of classics that she feels certain Man has never read, a few novels. There is even an Italian edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which she has heard whispered about but is shocked to see Man owns. She is half tempted to thumb through it to find the dirty bits but then imagines how she would feel if he saw her.

Instead, she lies down on the couch and stares at the ceiling. There have been many men in Lee’s life. More than she would admit in pleasant company, more than she has even admitted to her close friends. When she was fourteen, she met a boy named Harry at the bakery in downtown Poughkeepsie. She was buying rolls for Sunday dinner, he was standing behind her in line, he had soft brown eyes fringed with black lashes. Their interaction didn’t mark the first time she knew she had power over men, but it was the first time she consciously made use of it, and she felt no embarrassment when she asked him if he wanted to meet her outside the grounds of her school the next day at lunchtime. With Harry she found that the flirting she’d read about in dime novels actually worked, so she bit her lip and fluttered her eyelashes and gently placed her hand on his forearm as they walked, and she told him that he seemed strong. They went to an abandoned hayloft in the woods behind her school and she liked the feeling of his lean body pressed against the length of hers. She touched him everywhere, curious, but also oddly detached, as if she were floating somewhere above their two bodies, observing herself, saying, This is what a boy’s stomach feels like, this is how his hand feels when it is running up and down my back. They did nothing more than pet but the memories stuck with her all the same.

Lee waits almost an hour for Man to come back. Finally, feeling too keyed up to lie still any longer, she heads out on her own.


There is a bar a few blocks away called Le Bateau Ivre, and the building looks like its name: squat and fat and listing to one side like a man who can’t hold his liquor. Man has mentioned it to her. It’s one of his favorite places, but she tells herself she goes there with no hope of seeing him, that she is choosing it out of convenience more than anything. It has six outdoor tables unoccupied in the winter chill, and inside is empty of patrons too. It was decorated decades ago to look like a pleasure yacht, and Lee climbs the nickel-plated spiral staircase to the second floor, where the bartender, a rail-skinny woman in a gray dress and black apron, sits at the bar with a glass of wine.

Lee sits down a few seats away and takes off her hat. She lays her Rollei on the counter and runs her fingers over it, a comforting habit.

“A drink?” the woman asks.

“Pernod.”

Rousing herself from her stool, the woman moves behind the bar and bends into the icebox and fills a small glass to the brim with cracked cubes before pouring the viscous liquid over it. The ice pops as it begins to melt.

Lee takes a long swallow, the mix of cold liquid and hot licorice a familiar and pleasant burn.

The glass was stored in the icebox and as Lee sits there she cuts patterns in the frost on its surface with her fingernail. Her elation over her pictures has dissipated. When she imagined coming to Paris, she envisioned an immediate ascent into the bohemian circles her father had always warned her about. She thought it would be more open than New York, more welcoming. But here she is, still alone.

The bartender has been staring at her rudely the entire time, and finally says, “You look familiar. Are you an actress?”

“No. I work nearby. I’m a photographer. I’m actually studying with someone. Man Ray. He comes here sometimes.”

“Ah! Of course.” The bartender’s demeanor changes. “We all know him. Lillet with a slice of orange.”

“I guess so.”

“But he is photographing you, no?”

“No, I’m his assistant.”

The woman laughs. “And what does Kiki think of that?” she says.

“Kiki?” Lee asks, but even as she says the name aloud she knows who it is: the K of the ledger.

The bartender laughs again, louder, and then shouts something to the kitchen behind her in French too rapid for Lee to understand. A shout comes back, and then a loud rendition of a chanson.

“Who is Kiki?” the bartender asks. “How can you know Man Ray and not know Kiki?”

Lee doesn’t respond. The woman has made her feel embarrassed, as if here again, even in this one small slice of Paris she has fit herself into, she doesn’t quite belong.

The man who has been in the kitchen comes out, and they begin singing the chanson together, adding some sort of bawdy dance. The bartender shakes her shoulders and shimmies back and forth, and the man sticks out his tongue and leers at her until they both fall against the bar, laughing loudly.

The man turns to Lee, holding up his arms and saying, “You can catch our next show at the Jockey on Saturday night. Hortense and Pierre of Montparnasse!,” and then he returns to the kitchen, still chuckling.

The bartender says, “Don’t mind us—we just saw Kiki perform a few nights ago.”

“She’s a dancer?” Lee remembers the tailor fees, the milliner.

“You really don’t know her? She’s a dancer, a muse, a singer. She’s everything. Some say she’s the most beautiful woman in Paris. She’s been with Man Ray for years now. Treats him horribly from what we hear. But she can treat people however she wants—that’s just how it is.”

Lee nods, picks up her Pernod, and goes over to a table in the corner where she can look down at the street below. She has left midconversation but she doesn’t care if she is being rude.

So this is the mysterious K. Some sort of beautiful chantey singer. And with Man, for years. Lee wonders if Kiki modeled for him, wonders if things would have gone differently if she, Lee, agreed to be his model the one time he asked her. He hasn’t mentioned it again, and all of a sudden Lee wants him to notice her, to want her. His hands on hers, his body behind her in the dark. What if she turned around in the darkroom, put her lips near his? Would he have kissed her?

Lee orders another drink, and then another, sipping each so slowly that a few hours pass before she is done. As she sits there, staring out at the street below, the bar fills up around her. Each time someone new comes up the stairs a part of her expects it to be Man. Instead, more and more strangers. Women with rolled stockings and Eton crops. Men in jackets with wide lapels and homburgs cocked just so. They come in pairs, in groups, they sit close to one another at tables so their shoulders touch, and they do not notice anything beyond their own circles.

Just then a man ascends the spiral stairs and walks straight for the bar. He has a thin mustache, a gray tweed suit. He sets his hat crown side down on the counter, and as he looks around the room he spins it with his fingers, like a top. His hair is slicked down so perfectly it reflects the line of lights from across the room. Lee thinks he is American from his tie, wide with orange and red checks. A Parisian man would never wear something that loud. She makes eye contact with him, not dropping her gaze until he does so first. He turns to the bar and speaks to the bartender, but as soon as he has ordered, his gaze is back on Lee, who tilts her head at the empty chair next to her and cocks her eyebrow up at him. He smiles, nods, walks over after getting his drink.

“These seats are much more comfortable than the bar,” she says to him in English.

“They do appear so. Are you waiting for someone?” She was right—he is not Parisian. But his accent is British, not American, and up close he has that apologetic half smile she has always found so attractive in Englishmen.

“I’m waiting for you,” she says, brass bold.

“I doubt that very much.” He pulls out a chair, waits for her to speak again before he sits down.

“Oh, no, really I am. None of these Frenchmen will talk to me.” Lee gives him a flirty pout.

“I think they might be intimidated by you.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. You’re the best-looking girl I’ve seen since… well, maybe ever.”

Lee laughs. She feels her good mood, the mood she was in when she developed her photos, come back over her.

She leans toward him. “I used to be a model.”

“I’m not surprised. What are you now?”

“I’m a girl who hasn’t had a glass of champagne since I left New York.”

He throws back his head and laughs so she can see the fillings in his molars. With one quick tip of his hand he finishes his drink and lifts his finger in the air to signal the bartender, who comes over and gives the two of them a sharp look.

“Jouët split,” he says, but when Lee looks disappointed, he says, “Full bottle, please.”

The bottle comes in a nice silver stand that sits next to their table, and the champagne bubbles are like kisses tickling Lee’s throat on the way down. The man’s name is George, he is from Dorset, and he is in Paris for three days on business. He is a financier, which means nothing to Lee, and she lets him prattle on about his work as she used to let men do night after night in New York City. He has green eyes and a tender-looking mouth, and if she charmed him when he was sober she charms him much more the drunker he gets. Soon the sun has set and they are both sitting with their arms on the table, their elbows touching.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks him, stifling a small burp from all the champagne.